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Ride Maintenance In Parks

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Postby Cove26flags on September 4th, 2010, 2:34 am
I've always wondered how often do they inspect and walk the track of the roller coasters for safety? Does anyone know because I've been in parks hours after close and I never see maintenance guys working on the rides.
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Postby tribar on September 4th, 2010, 6:47 am
Don't they do it everyday the ride operates
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Postby Ilovthevu' on September 4th, 2010, 8:52 am
I believe they do that in the morning (not at night). At night, I think they just put stuff away.
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Postby BrianPlencner on September 4th, 2010, 5:49 pm
^ Correct. Most track walks by maintenance are done in the morning. I know for SFGAm and Eagle, they start around 7:00 AM, and walk the ride backwards (starting at the final helix, and going out to the barrell).

They take a hammer and a few other tools with them, and do general upkeep and bolt tightening as they walk the track. If anything major is found, the ride won't open that day until it is fixed.

The same is true for Viper too, and I would guess they start around the same amount of time.

As for the other rides, its probably the same process. I just know it for Eagle, as I used to get to the park really early (well..I still do, but now go in off of Grand Ave) and sit outside the Washington Street Gate and watch them do the trackwalk.

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Postby tribar on September 4th, 2010, 8:23 pm
What time did you go there
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Postby BP317 on September 4th, 2010, 9:23 pm
SF does not have night-shift maintenance people anymore, after the park closes they put the trains on the storage tracks and leave. The maintenance first shift come in at 6AM to start inspecting the rides with the carpenters starting earlier for the wooden coasters (I am pretty sure it's 5AM). In the morning, at SF, the maintenance guys also put on the trains and complete the block check before giving the attraction to the operations staff. That's a bit different from a park like CP, where the ride ops put the trains on the circuit and do the block check after maintenance inspects the ride.

In terms of general ride maintenance, all of the rides have to be inspected mechanically every morning before they operate (and carpentry for wooden coasters). The other maintenance people inspect the rides at scheduled times, for example electricians have to do their checks on each ride once a week. The parts are replaced based on a schedule of when the manufacturer recommends them to be replaced. SFGAm's maintenance staff i've always thought is good, always been amazed at how smooth Eagle and Viper are compared to most other wooden coasters and the flats are in phenomenal shape considering their age.
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Postby Cove26flags on September 5th, 2010, 2:54 pm
Ok I guess that answers everything! Thanks. I thought I heard a while back that they start inspection right after everyone is out of the park the night before.
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Postby Paradise on September 5th, 2010, 4:51 pm
BP/19 wrote:SF does not have night-shift maintenance people anymore, after the park closes they put the trains on the storage tracks and leave. The maintenance first shift come in at 6AM to start inspecting the rides with the carpenters starting earlier for the wooden coasters (I am pretty sure it's 5AM). In the morning, at SF, the maintenance guys also put on the trains and complete the block check before giving the attraction to the operations staff. That's a bit different from a park like CP, where the ride ops put the trains on the circuit and do the block check after maintenance inspects the ride.

In terms of general ride maintenance, all of the rides have to be inspected mechanically every morning before they operate (and carpentry for wooden coasters). The other maintenance people inspect the rides at scheduled times, for example electricians have to do their checks on each ride once a week. The parts are replaced based on a schedule of when the manufacturer recommends them to be replaced. SFGAm's maintenance staff i've always thought is good, always been amazed at how smooth Eagle and Viper are compared to most other wooden coasters and the flats are in phenomenal shape considering their age.


VERY informative...thanks BP!
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Postby tp41190 on September 6th, 2010, 2:44 pm
I always thought it was strange how to two parks differ as far as maintenance goes. But I also learned how maintenance quality kind of lacks at the CF parks. For example on Ripcord at CP I swear we knew more about the ride then maintenance did. There were four separate occasions where they connected to launch bridle (the thing that pulls you up) backwards. The first time it happened we were doing a test flight and the counter weight (which is 50 pounds) was smacking the flier in the head as they were going up....which hurt her really bad. We called maintenance and they tried to blame us for it. After that incident we would always make sure everything was ok before doing test flights. But we caught it the other 3 times. We actually had few employee injuries due to poor maintenance this summer.
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Postby BigTopSkyCoaster91 on September 13th, 2010, 1:38 am
BP/19 wrote:SFGAm's maintenance staff i've always thought is good, always been amazed at how smooth Eagle and Viper are compared to most other wooden coasters and the flats are in phenomenal shape considering their age.


If I'm not mistaken SFGAm has received awards for best maintenance team in the system, although I'm clueless what that means compared to other SF parks.

As for our woodies, I've ridden none in better condition. This is comparing them to SFOG, SFNE, SFEG, and Mt. Olympus/Avalanche. I rode Hades and Avalanche in 2005, so they were incredible then... but with how Big Chief's coasters have aged, I don't expect them to be as well kept as they should. Heck, I'll still ride them...but, the vertical G's at the valleys really kill my back.
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